Te Reo Māori Adaptive PAT - 14th Nov

Yesterday I did the te reo Māori adaptive test on NZCER. It very quickly adapted to my level and kept asking me questions that got harder and then sometimes easier based on what I needed/when I got questions wrong. Good to see that I'm close(ish) to the Y10 national guidelines!! 😂🙌 Scarier doing the test in front of my talented reo Māori speaking colleague who tried not to give anything away with his facials 😂 

This te reo Māori adaptive PAT test should be done by all staff, all students ❤️ love it! Thanks NZCER!

Byte Sized PLD: Feedback on TOD and Next Steps for eLearning

Kia ora koutou,

This week I sent out a Google Form to collect feedback from staff around the learning we did on Friday and to identify areas for next steps with our eLearning PLD at Heights. 

The questions were mainly around our staff's learning and experience during teacher only day as well as their own needs for their professional development around elearning. 

Nga mihi,

Alex

Byte Sized PLD: TES Teach (Formerly known as Blendspace)

Kia ora koutou,

Blendspace is a very cool tool and I was stoked to be asked by Jiji last week about the programme. He asked if I could create a video to help him learn how to use it after hearing about Blendspace at his Mindlab course. 

Blendspace is owned by TES, a UK company. It's been instrumental in my own teaching and learning. Really cool programme to help build collaboration in your departments, help get students collaborating on different ideas and concepts and ultimately an easy way for students to have a wealth of research in one place without going down too many rabbit holes on the Internet.

Here's the video tutorial I made below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq8lx355JDc

Here's the link for our TES Teach (Blendspace) board for Byte Sized PLD: Heights Edition. 

Let me know what you think!

Also... Last week I got an email from Amy Lin, one of the co-founders of TES Teach (formerly known as Blendspace), to update me about the new iPad app that they've created for Blendspace. It looks pretty cool from what I can tell so far! I look forward to seeing the Android version on the app store soon too. 

Their new Twitter account is @Tes_Teach so go ahead and follow them there as well. 

Ngā mihi nui ki a koe,

Alex

Kahoot, Plickers, MindLab and Heights

Yesterday at interval one of my colleagues was sharing his experience of  using Kahoot during his extended House Tutor Group session.

The other colleague in his dept was talking about a PLD conference they went to and referenced Plickers.

Our other colleagues were asking questions and learning about these tools.

I really liked Adam's use of Kahoot and how he'd used it to get the students to learn more about each other as a digital scavenger hunt. Specific details about his students was loaded in as questions like ' Who is in the Pasifika group?' etc

When helping Manu understand how and why you'd use Kahoot, he said it would be cool to use it for students to figure out exemplars of work - Achieved, Merit and Excellence - and the right answer being the mark he'd give the piece. I loved this suggestion because it was something I hadn't thought about before. Even though Manu would be using it for art pieces, Adam thought about how he could use it for compositions and pieces of music and I thought about how it could be used for writing or static images.

I liked that Ryan was sharing his learning about Plickers as we often talk about the fact that not all of our students had devices which made it difficult to do some of the cooler learning. Plickers, as Ryan explained to us, was great because the cards acted like QR codes and were corresponding to student's answers. If the students used the same numbered plickers cards, then you'd have a really good set of results and data to use. I definitely need to investigate Plickers in more depth.

Jiji was asking me about his MindLab assignment. As part of the July intake, he is just starting his first assessment. We've had a couple really short sessions on his assessment and tools he could use. I showed Emma how to use Screencastify on Sunday for a few hours along with some other tools and she'd shared her learning with others this week at Mindlab which is awesome!

A student mentioned the new APs and the awesome WIFI signal we have yesterday and said "It's all thanks to you, Miss".

Exactly what I needed to hear after a stressful few days after recieving an unwelcome letter from an old friend.

It was just so cool being part of that korero yesterday. It reminds me that there are people at school interested, and like Manu mentioned about wanting to do that kind of thing more often, it's the lack of time to experiment with new ideas and the need to share that is most important.

When I really open my eyes - there is heaps of collaboration going on at Heights. Love that. :)

Byte Sized PLD - The Beginning

On Tuesday I started something I've been meaning to do for a long time. I mentioned it briefly in the last post but thought I'd elaborate on it now.

Over the past two years I've been experimenting with different styles of PLD: Wide focus with all staff, small groups, workshops and one-on-one sessions.

What I've found is that for those in the early majority and late majority - the wide focus sessions work fine. The late majority tend to ask the most questions and stop the flow of the learning but at least they're getting involved and trying to learn. The laggards sit there doing next to nothing, often refusing to participate or watching others participate and sometimes giving very negative responses.

The early adopters and innovators get frustrated with this style of learning as often they aready know the majority of this kind of PLD - and if not, they pick it up fast and go and do their own research at home or during the session... the early adopters are often relied on to answer the questions of the late majority and are the ones who try and inspire the early majority to activate them into becoming early adopters.

During the small group sessions, most people are engaged as they've come to the session prepared with questions and ideas for what they want to learn more about.

During the workshops and one-on-one sessions, colleagues are supported with facilitation and direct help and support when needed. Colleagues have found these the most effective and often use the learning from the sessions in their own classes much faster than compared with the wide focus sessions.

Because our eLearning PLD has been few and far between and the issues around organising a space and time to organise PLD for staff... although it could easily be done through using GForms (for staff to choose their sessions) and GDocs (for us to create and collaborate on ideas) and GSlides (to create the sessions and share the learning with all of the staff)... I decided it was time to implement 'Byte Sized PLD'.

The main reason for Byte Sized PLD is because there is a lack of time to learn new things. If I deliver a short and sweet weekly email with links, ideas and shared examples of new use of tech in class by colleagues then perhaps our staff will feel more empowered, confident and ready to engage with new learning when they need it or have time for it.

On Tuesday I sent the first one out with links to some of the learning I did in the break at the PPTA Māori Teacher's conference and at Connect Day in Hamilton. I think I'll also share these Byte Sized PLD emails as posts on here too. Could become a really cool way of sharing and acknowledging the awesome work our staff at Heights are doing.

Just hoping I keep up with the weekly emails!!

MTC and Connect Day: Update

Sometimes I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle trying to get people to find that passion to learn something new. I decided yesterday to implement an idea I've had for a year called ByteSized - a quick and simple edtech update for staff. I am absolutely aware of the time constraints we all have as teachers - but a weekly emailed update could be a simple and effective way of getting people involved with upskilling, in their own time without too much input and direction from me.

Judging by the 20 minutes after yesterday's email and looking at Kate's awesome Slides on Google Apps and Extensions - shows that perhaps this method of bite sized chunks might work because there were lots of anonymous alligators, moose, koalas and so forth popping up to have a look at it.
What I'd like to see next is getting staff to make the same goal setting journey as we ask of our students.
To improve my own PLD - I look for free, cheap and simple ways to learn about things that are interesting for me. I have no qualms travelling wherever I need to. No ties, no dependants... makes it a whole heap easier. I have big goals for myself individually, as a teacher and personally. Always have - but sometimes I get lost in the process of the journey and forget my next step.
After the Māori Teacher's Conference and the pivotal keynote at Connect Day - I feel more purpose in what I'm doing. Being recognised around the country for what I do for other teachers and to improve the quality of reo Māori being shared online in a public space... Marcus Akuhata-Brown's korero absolutely had me in awe. I wish someone had videoed it so I could replay it every morning to wake me up and get me ready for the day.
I'm still thinking about my experience at these two conferences and a better update will come soon.
Big goals:
Attend GAFE summit
Get Google Certified
Get Confidence to ask THAT question I keep putting off....
Figure out what's going on with why I'm feeling increasingly more stupid when I talk. Stuttering, losing train of thought, ideas not connecting.
Investigate Masters study...

MindLab: Applied Practice - Week 31 - Interdisciplinary Connections Map (Activity 7)

I've been thinking a lot about what 'interdisciplinary' actually means and after reading a few articles, watching a couple videos... I kind of get what it means now.

I love in this Ted Talk that David Wiley brings up Creative Commons. It was the main thing that helped me to understand the need for more interdisciplinary learning and teaching approaches. The need to Mix, Reuse, Share. 

At first I thought it was just cross-curricular learning, planning with other teachers collaboratively to create a programme that was more integrated.

It's more than that...

It's not just integrated learning either.

It's the kind of learning where the student is at the focus, completely inquiry based where students are essentially asking questions to develop a rich source of learning where it is not only relevant but real life learning too. It's the kind of learning where those boundaries of learning areas and specialist subjects are crossed. Where students are using their knowledge across the differing learning areas to create a meaningful learning experience.

This sounds incredibly beautiful. I want to learn how to do this. I arrogantly feel that I do some of this already... but know that everything I do can be done significantly better. Also, that kind of learning is organic. It comes from real teachable moments. It comes from students asking questions related to their own learning.

In secondary school and particularly employed as an English teacher, many of the questions my students ask are focussed on the assessment at hand, rather than their learning - eg "What do I need to do to get a Merit?" or "I don't feel that this assessment will allow me to get an Excellence so there's no point doing it as I want to get endorsed with Excellence"....

Or the "I can't be bothered doing any more with it Miss, I just want an Achieved."

This credit farming business seriously ruins my love for teaching and learning. Students know the system. They know how to work the system. Jeez, my year were the second group through NCEA and we knew how to work the system too.

The assessments if done well, can be cross-curricular, they can be interdisciplinary - but more often than not they aren't. This is a major problem for me. I would love to see real world learning happening for every student in my class. At the moment - over all five classes - I'd have to say it's only happening in my social studies class, some in Y10 English and maybe three or four students across Y11 and the Y12 classes.

The reason being is that 1) My continuous moan that there is just not enough time and 2) real-world learning and teachable moments happen every so often because we're so driven by the assessment and the marking and moderation and uploading to KAMAR that we forget or don't pay as much attention to the teaching moments and opportunities throughout the assessment.

Yesterday I missed two opportunities to discuss real-world learning from questions from my students. I don't know why I didn't just stop what we were doing and discuss it. It's real world learning and I love those types of discussions which allow my students to put their hearts on the line and declare their passion and thoughts whichever way it turns. It was in Social Studies too.. a class where I want them to be more aware of what is happening in the world today and they asked me a question about Moko.... and I responded about how awful and how sad it was... and then kept thinking just to stay on task and carry on with what we were doing.

The point I guess I'm making is that those moments can be rare and if they're not seized and taken advantage of, then we miss truly wonderful moments where students take hold of their own learning and participate and contribute in a way that allows all students the chance to discover and share their own thoughts.

Two areas of focus for future goals in teaching and learning:

Creating more relevant ways to assess student learning
As I discussed briefly above, the need to assess students is part of my job, however there has to be a way to ensure that assessments are more relevant and making the most of student's engagement and interest into their learning. At present our assessments in English have the potential to be more interdisciplinary. The main issue is the assumed expectation of what is accepted as assessment quality. I have so many ideas. So many ideas around creating more relevant ways to assess. The issue remains around the expectation of my colleagues in my department as to what constitutes work that could be assessed. In the past few months there has finally been a decision agreed by all members of the department that work done in other learning areas can be used towards the Level Two Writing Portfolio as long as it is worked up to a Level Two English standard for writing. This is increasingly exciting. I'm no longer nervous about telling students it's okay to do this.

I'd also like to investigate alternatives for the academic purposes assessment - at present it is relevant for many students as it focuses on two hunting articles around safety while hunting. A major issue in our area. As a result of this, it could be seen as being relevant. In the past I've had a range of different students - some of which it was relevant and relateable - and others who it didn't connect with at all. This year I had even more students who didn't connect with it. I think it is super important to have relevant assessment opportunities... and to ensure there is equitable access in terms of engagement for all students.... I just wonder where there are possible alternatives to the hunting one... even though I personally connect with it easily as a kid who grew up hunting... but I digress...

Making the most of teachable moments to ensure more relevant and real-world learning
With whatever we do in class - working towards the goal of having more relevant ways of assessing - there is a need to be consistently planning programmes of learning that take into account student's interests, inquiries and more importantly focused questions around the learning. By doing this, there may be even more teachable moments available which may create more relevant and real-world learning opportunities.

There are teachable moments that get missed out on due to the need to complete the coursework. I hate that I did this the other day. It makes me incredibly sad that I didn't create that environment to discuss those issues. If students were given more opportunities to identify areas that they were interested in there would be a higher chance of more engagement and more focused learning for all involved.

I'm not sure this is really a focus for interdisciplinary teaching and learning... or whether it's just good teaching and learning... I just think that these two issues are goal-worthy for now for me as they're issues that I'm always thinking about and trying to be better with. It all comes down to making the learning more effective and worthy of the student's time. I suppose too it means a lot as a teacher to ensure more relevant modes of teaching too as with everything I've learnt in the MindLab ... I need to make sure that my students are at the centre so that they can redefine their learning and what it means to be a learner in the 21st century.

Applied Practice - Week 30 - Using social online networks in teaching and/or professional development - (Activity 6)

Really interesting discussion tonight... and not only just because I began talking about how Tinder wasn't on the slides as a form of social media... or how I've used it bahahaha. Love it. Thanks Dave for asking about how I've used it and the issues I've found around the digital citizenship for the people in my age group who are absolutely inappropriate.

Really loving this discussion tonight around the use of social media for professional development and how we could use it for teaching in class.

I've been thinking about how I use social media and the purpose. The WHY is absolutely critical. We need to think about HOW we use it and WHY we'd use social media too.

Some key features of social media that are beneficial for teaching and learning:

• connect with people outside of your immediate colleagues at school
• connect with people who are like-minded and are interested in collaborating
• develop more indepth perspectives around issues that you're interested in
• make connections throughout the world 

Potential challenges that teachers need to be aware of when integrating social networking platforms into teaching activities:

• digital citizenship issues
• issues around effective use and the WHY 
• being more inclusive about the way we connect 

The main issue I suppose is how we use social media to more effectively teach digital citizenship skills, actively and in participation and collaboration with our students and the world around us. Using social media tools to share learning and perspectives is incredibly important as students need to learn from someone they trust and can approach with questions about using social media. If students don't learn digital citizenship skills at school, and don't get help from whanau at home, then where do they learn to be appropriate while online? 

More importantly, students need to identify more effective ways to resolve issues other than believing the negative things people say while using social media. They often get in too deep with cyber bullying and get so inundated with messages and lost in their online worlds. 

The best thing though about being able to use social media in class is teaching students what is acceptable and what could be done about creating more safer online environments, and how they have a place in creating those environments. 

What social media platform best supports engagement with your professional development?

• TWITTER!!!!! PINTEREST!!!! 

How do I use social media to enhance my professional development?

I feel as if I've explained this plenty plenty plenty of times previously at different workshops, conferences, discussions on PLD etc BUT.... I'll discuss the main reasons again here:

I use social media, specifically Twitter, to enhance my PLD so that I don't feel lonely anymore. That sounds really stupid - but when I first started using it I was a first year teacher and didn't feel like I could ask those 'stupid' questions from those in my department. At the time I felt alone and isolated, partly because I was too scared to speak up and ask the more experienced teachers and also because I had such a massive thirst for learning and I wasn't getting enough from the PLD run at school around the areas that I was most interested in. 

Now as a fifth year teacher, I still use Twitter to get ideas, inspiration, advice and perspectives from teachers around the country and around the world. I love that you get instantaneous feedback and that there is no hierarchy when using Twitter - it is a flat landscape in terms of connecting to people around the world by sending a simple tweet. I love that you can send a tweet to someone you have admired for years, like Sarah Kay or even Sir Ken Robinson and maybe you don't get a response back or maybe you do - the point is that you can connect with someone directly. And that is the beauty of Twitter. 

I've connected with English teachers across the country, teachers using Class Dojo around the world, teachers I admire and teachers I've had debates with. I've used Twitter to ask questions on the behalf of my students to world leaders. This in itself builds openness, collaboration, understanding and the ability to relate to others. All important aspects within education and future focussed learning. 

Using Social Media in the Classroom

Really interesting video - I liked how she used it to show her student's learning progressions - how she got students to write their blog posts - even though they couldn't write well, she wrote what they meant in brackets and they could get some pictures of videos to show their learning too. 

Benefits: students connect with outside world! 

Challenges: issues around student use of photos - policies might be used in her school - surely needed a disclaimer or something??


Research:
The PPTA have some INCREDIBLY good guidelines around the use of social media - found here and here.

NZCER likewise - found here and here and here.

Interested in using Twitter as a teacher and professional? Check out my Twitter cheat sheet here.

The workshop slides and notes that Nathaniel Louwrens and I created from our workshop at ULearn last year.

The #EdBlogNZ list of NZ teachers' blogs - found here.

Class Notes

Resources to look into:

Melhuish, K.(2013). Online social networking and its impact on New Zealand educators’ professional learning. Master Thesis. The University of Waikato. Retrieved on 05 May, 2015 from http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/han...

Seaman, J., & Tinti-Kane, H. (2013). Social media for teaching and learning. Retrieved from http://www.pearsonlearningsolutions.com/assets/downloads/reports/social-media-for-teaching-and-learning-2013-report.pdf#view=FitH,0

Silius, K., Miilumäki, T., Huhtamäki, J., Tebest, T., Meriläinen, J. & Pohjolainen, S.(2010). Students’ motivations for social media enhanced studying and learning. Knowledge Management & E-Learning: An International Journal, 2(1), 54-67. Retrieved from http://www.kmel-journal.org/ojs/index.php/online-publication/article/view/55/39

Applied Practice - Week 29 - Legal and ethical contexts in my digital practice - (Activity 5)

For this post I am identifying a particular ethical dilemma in my own practice that is linked to digital or online access and activity. 

There are a few dilemmas that I'm currently facing:

1. BYOD Policy (or lack thereof)
2. Agreement (or lack of consenting agreement) by students and whanau about photography being used of students in social media accounts, in the foyer of our school office, in the newspaper or school yearbook
3. Equity of access to devices 
4. Professionalism on social media

1. BYOD Policy or lack thereof

At present we don't have a solid BYOD policy. We have one that has been used by another school and we have changed it to suit our purposes as a school. At the moment there is a blurring of the lines between the two extremes - NO DEVICES AT SCHOOL to BYOD. For me this causes a lot of issues around acceptable use and lack of digital citizenship. Students and staff are breaking rules while we sort this policy out and ensure that it not only safeguards the students and the school, but the community too. 

We have had trial BYOD sessions throughout the school and these trial students have signed a trial BYOD policy agreement. This is good. But it lasts only for the duration of the trial. What we need to do next is a schoolwide signing - by each student and their whanau. We also need to be actively teaching digital citizenship. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. THE. DEVICES. ARE. USED. 

I've spoken a lot before about the work that Creative Commons NZ, Common Sense Media and Netsafe NZ have done in ensuring a safe and ethical environment for students, staff and schools in using BYOD. There are MULTIPLE tools available for schools to use on the Netsafe website and some really cool digital citizenship tools on the Common Sense Media site too. What needs to happen now - is a space where staff and students can go to to learn more about these skills. A portal. Something I've been working on for a while now - to ensure a quick and easy way to access information relative to digital citizenship and use of technology. 

2. Agreement (or lack of consenting agreement) by students and whanau about photography being used of students in social media accounts, in the foyer of our school office, in the newspaper or school yearbook

My issue with this is relatively obvious. At present we do not have anything in any of our school documentation around use of photography. I have looked many many times over the last few years to see if it is in there. Apparently it was a few years ago. It should not ever be an assumption that as a school we will take photos and share them. It is only with informed consent that this is able to occur. 

 A few weeks ago I was watching two young gentlemen create what would have been a beautiful timelapse of students walking to and from their classes. I purposefully walked into the shot and talked with them about the appropriateness of what they were doing. I felt incredibly awful about screwing up their work - however, I feel even more passionate about ensuring that students have their say about where their photos and faces or bodies are put in our world. Students - kaore - everyone has the right to know WHERE the photos are being stored, sent or uploaded to where. We should be teaching this just as we should be teaching the importance of a strong handshake. Because without clear guidelines around what is acceptable - the lines are too blurred and it becomes unsafe territory. 

I have suggested time and time again about the need to add in a photography clause in our enrolment form. I'm often listened to - but it still hasn't happened which is sad. It is for this one reason why I don't share any of the photos I take. I always ask students whether I can take a photo of them or their work. Often I get them to hold their work up in front of their face. It usually goes nowhere other than my Dropbox account, excepting when I purposefully ask a student or group of students if it can go on Twitter based on their interest in the topic we are doing and to gain more impact from the world around us. I give photos to the school yearbook, grudgingly, but always with the students in mind. But more importantly - I think this discussion is one that needs to happen more often within our role as teachers of teenagers who feel they can take photos or videos of anyone without their consent. 

3. Equity of access to devices 

Lastly, and this is a big deal - equity of access. In our community, once we have BYOD and the photography clause amended in our enrolment forms, we will need to address the elephant in the room. Something I've been thinking about A LOT. Something that plagues me and my practice as a teacher because I really want to be an inspirational, innovative, interesting and fabulously techy teacher - but at the end of the day I can only work with what I have. I blend my lessons again and again to have a mixture of both 21st century learning and 'traditional' styles of learning with 21st century skills embedded throughout. 

The problem that I keep coming back to though is the simple fact that 1) we are still getting our infrastructure sorted throughout the school (nearly finished!!!!) and within Rotorua and 2) a vast majority of students either don't know how to learn with digital technologies as they are learning from scratch as they've never had devices at home or access to them at school OR if they do have devices they still don't know how to use them effectively to improve their learning. 

One of the ideas that is floating around in my head at the moment is creating an equity fund - produced by those old boys and old girls from Heights - who have finished school, have careers and are now in a position to give back. Someone once said to me that Heights doesn't have the same ability as RBHS to create a fund like that. Every school has success. Every school has a beautiful and sometimes awful history. Every school has people that think back to their days of glory at school and want to give back in some way. Why not create a funding network where current students and their whanau can apply for scholarships or grants? It seems the most obvious thing in the world to me. 

As well as this issue, is the need to have sets of SOMETHING in each class. Not per department. It needs to be across the school, ready when needed. Ubiquitous at all times. For all students, no matter their background. 

4. Professionalism on social media

I just finished watching this:

It is beyond awkward. Obviously created to make the discussion happen like any good piece of media, however it got me thinking about the kinds of reasons why I choose to use Twitter professionally. I don't talk about anything other than Twitter. One of my good friends and colleagues (not a teacher) uses Twitter as her space away from Facebook where her friends and family are. We talk on Twitter often - not in detail but sometimes referencing what's happened during the day. I'm nervous about those tweets - because while they're professional in a way - they're still not focussed on the kaupapa. 

Alternatively, my use of Facebook is for my friends and whanau. I don't accept students as 'friends' until they're finished high school - because by that time they're not interested in keeping in touch on social media anymore and almost certainly don't want their favourite teacher being disappointed in them when they post inappropriate stuff online. 

On Facebook I'm relatively political, I discuss big issues happening in the world today - my issues as a teacher in terms of having to deal with these things that come up - everyday poverty, learned helplessness, homelessness, racism, loss and grief. I hardly ever mention stuff that happens at school - preferring to keep that offloading korero to phone calls to whanau and friends who don't live in Rotorua. 

The issue I have is again related to use of students and their photos - I have long time friends and colleagues who share photos of their students online or tag them in pictures. I'm just way too scared to do that. Issues around child kidnapping, CYFs children, custody battles, etc etc etc all spring to mind. It worries me when I see my friends posting this kind of stuff. It's just not on. For me the difficult thing is always finding the right words to say something in a confrontation or disagreement because I revert to that little nervous, scared girl and I so strongly want to stand up in defence of those who have not chosen to put their pictures up in a shared space. 

Heoi ano - it also comes back to digital citizenship and knowing where the line is. For some teachers it's easy to see that line, for others it becomes blurred beyond belief. For some teachers who are a lot older than me, they seem to add students as friends, I tell my students that they'd hate being my friend on Facebook because I post too much. I try to make it into a joke. Likewise with my Twitter account. They ask if they can follow me - I say sure, but I can't follow you back. And anyway, I say, you will not want to follow me too long on Twitter, particularly when there's a conference on!

Finding the ethics and legality in everyday life is an interesting one. Even more so when it comes to being a teacher, a role model, a person that looks after and cares for young people. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Class Notes

Further Reading:

Education Council. (nd). Code of Ethics for Certificated Teachers. Retrieved from https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/code-of-ethics-certificated-teachers-0

Hall, A. (2001). What ought I to do, all things considered? An approach to the exploration of ethical problems by teachers. Paper presented at the IIPE Conference, Brisbane. Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Developing-leaders/What-Ought-I-to-Do-All-Things-Considered-An-Approach-to-the-Exploration-of-Ethical-Problems-by-Teachers

#EngChatNZ and #LibChatNZ Collaboration: Building Up Readers

Awesome korero!! Massive thanks to the LibChatNZ whanau for getting involved with the EngChatNZ crew :) Nga mihi!

Applied Practice - Week 28 - Indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness in my practice - (Activity 4)

Have just been looking at the Unitec's framework for embedding Te Tiriti o Waitangi into their courses. Absolutely beautiful use of a Poutama. I don't think I've ever seen anyone use it like that before. 

The poutama is a three way progression to step towards the stars, enlightenment, the end journey. 

As a reflective practitioner my journey as a teacher always seems to have a series of lessons, new learning, challenges and opportunities to show my learning. I like it purely because I'm learning from myself, my own decisions and choices and constantly think about the kind of teacher I want to be and the kind of person I want to be for my students - and for myself at the end of the day. 

Within the Unitec Poutama was the consistent use and embedding of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Absolutely beautiful. I wonder whether other tertiary institutes have thought about this in as much depth as Unitec has. 

I studied at Waikato - through the courses I chose, the networks I worked in as the history and Ingarihi Kaiawhina for Te Aka Matua in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, the friends I met - I was able to be tuturu Maori. The campus itself had bilingual signs - something many universities in NZ didn't have apparently. Being able to ask for help from Maori was crucial. Seeing Maori in positions of authority and power - as senior lecturers and head of departments was vital in my belief that I too could be who I was in a world dominated by a colonised worldview. 

I was lucky at Waikato to be taught by Jeanette Graham in my first two years at uni while studying my BA in History and English. Like my history teacher at high school, she showed both perspectives - from a Maori worldview, and Pakeha. What I loved the most about her was her purposeful talk about WHY we had to discuss these things - and more importantly how the 'loser' of the war was often silenced - and as such - it is always vital to hear their side of the story. 

The power dynamics in NZ are still the same. Maori are still fighting to be recognised for the effects on us as a whole as a result of colonisation. Pakeha continue to forget that we have white privilege and that we are consistently in the role of power. There is no shared power. Not truly. There is ongoing racism and disgusting examples of prejudice and pre-positioned perspectives particularly in regards to our justice system. Maori are constantly on the backfoot. 

For all the talks about how far we've come - and bloody hell have we what - we haven't gone far enough yet. 

For many people who come to NZ as tourists, they absolutely adore our Maori culture. They embrace the reo. They are quick to learn and follow simple tikanga and are overwhelmingly interested in the dynamics between Maori and Pakeha. 

Having studied four years of Maori and Pakeha issues, histories, stories, perspectives and knowledge around the disproportionate effects on Maori as a result of the interaction between Maori and Pakeha -  having lived my life as both Maori and Pakeha - having taught in both bilingual units and mainstream - there is a massive difference. 

For those who can't see it - I call them blissfully ignorant. There are many Pakeha in NZ who empathise and support Maori in this battle. There are many more - who do not. And those people are very very vocal. 

I've talked previously about the importance of being culturally responsive - here, here, here, here and here - so I will refrain from doing that in this post (even though that's the point in this particular post - but it's an issue close to my heart that needs years and years of reflective posts and discussions that one post just can't do enough credit...).

Instead - I will discuss how we as a school are culturally responsive:

At Western Heights High School we have roughly 70% Maori students. The other 30% are Pakeha, Polynesian, Asian or classed as other. 

It is imperative - in any high school but particularly at ours - to uphold the Treaty of Waitangi in all that we do. 

Our new principal Jim Gemmell is a matakite - I'm calling it now because I already see a clear vision in what he is trying to do at Heights.

In a few weeks we are introducing a trial for an extended house tutor group class. Our HTG's are vertical forms - so within this each class has a handful of each year level and the idea was to create a community. Not all HTGs are like this however. Mine is. I was VERY careful about creating this sense of community and whanau from the very beginning - I was lucky in that I started at Heights the year that they brought HTGs in. Prior to that it was horizontal form classes that apparently had become quite chaotic and in some classes cases a bit toxic. 

From the get go I focussed on manaakitanga and supporting my students the best way I could. Over the last four years though - the amount of paperwork, pastoral care, attendance issues, academic tracking, academic counselling etc has gotten a much bigger job than the 15 or so minutes we see our students each morning. 

So - we are heading into our new trial of a 40 minute extended house tutor group. I am absolutely excited about this. My own HTG KAL (Kowhai House, My initials) understand why we are doing this. They know that I can only just get through the notices each HTG. They know that I barely have any time to actually ask them how they're going, let alone check ongoing attendance issues, do the roll, sort out uniform issues, have individual conversations with students to check in to see how they're going - both hinengaro and tinana -wise. They get it and for KAL - they look forward to it - mostly because they know that ever second Wednesday I get paid and we can have a bit of a shared kai before that interval haha. 

For other students that I teach - their questions begin at the WHY - which they then understand once I explain from my perspective about actually being able to do my job as a house tutor teacher better, and then their questions turn to statements about how boring their classes will be for that 40 minutes. Something I just don't understand as the point of thesr HTGs was to create a sense of community. I know I'm not the only teacher at Heights who has made our students feel comfortable and safe. I worry though that the teachers who aren't going to use this time effectively, may be the ones that aren't being culturally responsive in the classroom. 

The next very cool new initiative that our principal has initiated is the goal setting and interviews for senior students on the 27th June. 

The idea is that students identify the areas of strength and weakness, we discuss how they're doing academically at school and talk about setting realistic goals with them and their whanau. 

What this means for us is that we need to ring each whanau, make contact with them and book an appointment. Our interview day goes from 8.30 am to 5.30pm. Doing this will allow whanau time after school and before school to come and see us. Students must be there - for their interview so it is a shared decision and building on success. Creating achievable goals and identifying areas of improvement.

Lastly - at Heights we have just launched our new WHHS app - available on the app store for both Android and iOS. This is a key mode for communication and connecting with whanau. 

At Heights - we have many teachers who aren't Maori - this can be an issue for many students who are trying to find strong Maori role models in their lives. It wasn't til I went to University that I found these role models. For our Heights students - having strong role models is absolutely key to their success. Whether they are Maori or not - having strong role models can make or break a student. As such, going through our Kia Eke Panuku training has shown us the many ways we all need to up our game and improve our modes of being transparently culturally responsive as well as being aware of when we AREN'T being culturally responsive and how to change this. 

One particular area of focus for myself is creating more opportunities for shared decision making in class - more co-construction in the learning and more opportunities to make the learning relevant. 

We had a discussion in social studies the oher day about the importance of saying names correctly. It is my biggest bugbear when people say names incorrectly. Names hold mana. They are incredibly important and we should do our absolute best to learn how to say them correctly. I always tell my students to tell me off if I've said a name wrong when I first meet them. 

I try my best to learn their names as fast as possible and as correctly as possible. It irritates me beyond belief when a student asks a teacher to say their name correctly and the teacher refuses. It is absolutely different if the teacher is actually trying to say it correctly. 

However - the inherent and institutionalised racism in NZ shows through time and time again. Under the Treaty of Waitangi it is absolutely critical that we learn names - as they hold mana - it shows shared power and tino rangatiratanga.

Update (20th June): Today I talked more with the kaiako I had been told who refuses to say Maori names correctly. I actually don't know how to deal with this. The issue around collegiality and professionalism is having serious discordant issues with my need to assert that student's mana and tautoko her. Seeing her with her students - it was interesting today. To say the least. 

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Class Notes

Further Reading:

Bishop, R, Berryman, M., Cavanagh, T. & Teddy, L. (2009). Te Kotahitanga: Addressing educational disparities facing Māori students in New Zealand. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25(5)734–742.

Unitec. (n.d). Unitec Learning and Teaching Booklet. http://www.unitec.ac.nz/ahimura/publications/U008817%20Learning%20and%20Teaching%20Booklet.pdf

Kia Eke Panuku and Cultural Responsiveness and Relational Pedagogy

For a long time I've been meaning to talk about Te Kotahitanga and the way in which it opened my mind and heart to the way I knew was right as a teacher, gave names to the ways of teaching that I was already doing and helped me focus on areas that I needee to improve. The best part of Te Kotahitanga was the way we co-constructed and shared about what worked for us with our shared students and what we did to improve the learning.

Now that Kia Eke Panuku has begun to roll out to the staff at WHHS I feel that same feeling I had at Massey when I was introduced to Te Kotahitanga.

It's a feeling of rightness. Tika. Just at this point in time everything is as it should be. Because we're working together to change it. To stop that growing gap between Maori and Pakeha in achievement data. To enable our students to feel comfortable succeeding as Maori. Being Maori and knowing that it's okay to be Maori.

Our Kia Eke Panuku hui yesterday was awesome. We discussed the culturally responsive principles:

We learnt how to unpack the Kia Eke Panuku observation tool and how we would use it to observe other teachers and their pedagogy.

We observed our first teacher - writing down only what we heard and saw. No judgements. No perspectives.

We discussed the issues we had - not hearing everything clearly, needing to move around and listen in on conversations.

We delved deeper into unpacking the ob tool and the grey tickbox column and the far right white columns too - dialogic, cultural toolkit, co-construction, ...., culturally responsive principles.

We observed our second teacher of the day and again - that moment of tika. Watching my friend move around the room, helping her students, being herself, absolutely in that moment in time, comfortable with her students and relaxing with them.

We observed the interactions, the dialogues that were taking place. We assessed students cognitive focus and ... focus.

We shared our thoughts when we got back before lunch.

Over lunch we talked more about the need to have this done and the issues around it not having done so already. We agreed that this had been really good for us all.

In the last session we discussed shadow coaching and how we'd go about discussing those gnarly questions or queries through the use of a time out.

One of our DPs, who is Kia Eke Panuku trained, was observed by the other group in our session and was used as an example for shadow coaching also. We watched as our colleague and mate D discuss the issues and bring them up in a cool, reflective manner and allowed the observed kaiako talk us through the issues, the strategies and what might be done next time. There were plenty of time outs used to bring up other issues and the shadow coaching continued. If only all conversations could go as smoothly. Unfortunately there is a kneejerk reaction to become defensive of oneself as we are so used to being in our single cell classrooms. We need to become more used to having someone in class observing us.

I welcome obs. I'm so excited. I want to be a better teacher and the only way that can happen is with regular observations, student voice and hard work to believe I can be a better teacher and make some serious changes.

The discussion around a critical lens is still floating in my mind too.

Having a lens that is critically looking at certain areas - not being critical - but critically looking to identify areas with what is happening in the classroom using a snapshot in time of an observation.

The whakatauki used at the end was likewise beautiful.

MindLab: Applied Practice - Week 27 - Trends and Issues in Education (Activity 3)

A definition of a trend...

My first thoughts are the trends set out by Core Education and the development of them over the years. Some of the main trends include gamification, collaborative learning environments/innovative learning environments/modern learning environments, learner agency, equitable access etc

Below are the Ten Trends collated by Core found here: http://www.core-ed.org/thought-leadership/ten-trends 

Trends seem to be aspects of education that we need to be developing over a period of time. Networked communities, equitable access and digital fluency are aspects in education that can't be fixed overnight. They need time, strategies and problem-solving to find the best solutions that help each individual school develop stronger awareness around these issues. 

Issues on the other hand are problems that we might not necessarily be able to fix but ones in which we could find strategies to help become less problematic for those in our school communities. 

Issues such as poverty impacting on the ability to have equitable access, resistance to change impacting the need to create more evolved ways of assessing students through design thinking and cross-curricular assessment. There are MANY issues in schools that can't be solved by individual teachers and need to be a collaborative, joint approach where we work together to find possible solutions to help lessen the impact of the issues in order to try keep ahead with possible trends. 

Visser and Gagnon (2005) state that a term is something that "refers to the statistically ovservalble change or general orientation of a general movement."

Wilson (2012) says that an issues "point to unresolved concern, questions and tensions that arouse...."

Trend Analysis

Global trends: The world is changing faster than at any time in human history (Youtube Video)

http://tinyurl.com/TMLtrendsROT

Collaborative Task:

Evaluation at a Glance:Priority Learners in New Zealand Schools 

Issue One: 'Shifting the focus to student-centred learning'

"In the most successful schools, the trustees, leaders and teachers have an uncompromising focus on fostering students‟ interests and strengths, and on addressing their learning needs. They understand that their role is to serve students. Their philosophies about how students should experience education are lived out in rich learning programmes, thoughtful management of the curriculum, positive school cultures, and in effective leadership and governance practices. A synergy and coherence exists between these aspects that contribute positively to the whole experience of being a learner. Importantly, there is an ethic of care for students‟ current and future success." (ERO, 2012, p. 7)

“Importantly, leaders cultivate teaching communities that are focused on improving student success. They do this through an intensive focus on understanding the connection between teaching actions/decisions and students‟ engagement and learning. Leaders support teachers to share “collective responsibility and accountability for students‟ achievement and wellbeing” (p.120). Students are at the heart of school business.”  (ERO, 2012, p. 10)

Individual task:

Contemporary issues or trends in NZ or internationally

Trends in NZ:

• Makerspaces
• The development of spaces inside classrooms that provide the ability for students to use design thinking, imagination and maker skills to create something new and consistently evolving.

• ILE/MLM
• The need to create more student centred spaces that allow students to feel comfortable, engaged, interested and flexibility to make choices as to where they sit and learn best. 
• The mindset of modern learning environment/innovative learning environments whereby kaiako are developing stronger awareness around their pedagogy and the changes needed to ensure stronger perspectives around ....?

Issues in NZ:

• Assessment
• The need for more open perspectives within how we assess for our students. 
• Equity
• The need to be more aware of the inequity in NZ with students and their access of digital tools to enhance their learning. 

There are HEAPS of really cool blogs out there - check out the NZ educator blogroll on www.edblognz.blogpost.co.nz

Loved this example: https://riharinz.wordpress.com/2016/03/13/change-for-my-teaching/

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Class Notes

Further reading:

Education Review Office. (2012). Evaluation at a Glance: Priority Learners in New Zealand Schools. Retrieved 18 May 2016, from http://www.ero.govt.nz/About-Us/News-Media-Releases2/The-three-most-pressing-issues-for-N

KPMG International. (2014). Future state 2030: the global megatrends shaping governments”. KPMG International Cooperative: USA. Retrieved fromhttp://www.kpmg.com/Global/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/future-state-government/Documents/future-state-2030-v3.pdf

National intelligence council.(2012). Global trends: Alternative Worlds. National Intelligence Council: US. Retrieved fromhttps://globaltrends2030.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/global-trends-2030-november2012.pdf

MindLab: Applied Practice Week 26 - Professional Communities of Practice (Activity 2)

For this blog post we'll be discussing professional communities of practice. A community of practice to me means a group of people working together towards a shared goal. In this case, our November Mindlab intake cohort, colleagues and students at Heights, the whanau of #EngChatNZ and #edchatnz, PPTA whanau and those in my professional learning network. 

The questions below were posed to us this week around professional communities and while I'm only meant to write about two - I think a little bit of an overview is needed before diving in wholeheartedly on two particular ones. 

1. What is the organisational culture (collective values/principles) that underpins your practice? How would you contribute to fostering a positive professional environment in your community of practice?
2. What are the current issues in your community of practice? How would your community of practice address them?
3. What are the challenges that you face in your community of practice? How would your community of practice address them?
4. What changes are occurring in the context of your profession? How would your community of practices address them?

1. The organisational culture - collective values and principles - that underpin my practice focus are on the aspects of manaakitanga and ensuring that everyone in the class feels safe and respected. I contribute to fostering a positive professional environment in our community of practice in a similar way - by listening, being interested in what my colleagues are sharing, discussing with them on a sometimes surface and then deeper level about issues that are important to me and pushing them to find the talking points that most engage them as well. In essence, I like to develop conversations by being patient and waiting for the right moment to ask certain questions to see whether I can flip the conversation into more unsafe waters to test my colleagues' adaptive confidence and see where their confidence lies in certain areas - particularly around tech in class. 

2. The current issues in our community of practice include building confidence, being more trustworthy of each other, sharing resources and not being scared that someone will 'steal' it, encouraging a high trust model rather than a low trust model. Our community of practice are learning to work together, collaborate more often and build on their shared knowledge in many areas. 

3. The challenges we face in our community of practice include being unsure of how to ask for help and not wanting to be seen as not looking as if they're not the expert, being scared of standing up for what's right, being scared to stand up to those who are workplace bullies, being unsure about how to create leadership opportunities when being a leader and having a leadership position seem to mean a different thing. Our community of practice deals with these challenges in a variety of ways. The old way seemed to be to ignore all of this and attempt the 'fake it til you make it' idea. Some of that previous whakaaro is still around and it's slowly being chipped away at. Our community of practice is incredibly supportive, we support each other, be collegiate and professional all the while being there for each other. Schools can be very catty and toxic places - particularly being around teenage drama all of the time - adults sometimes forget how to stay cool in certain situations. We're lucky at Heights in that even though it's quite clique-y - there are clique jumpers who support and understand differing perspectives and will help provide those bridges to ensure more happier and calmer staff members in difficult situations. 

4. The changes in teaching at the moment is the introduction of technology. I say this with a heavy heart because I've been fighting a very long battle since I was 8 and now - we're finally here - where we can teach across borders, without walls and yet - people still want walls. People still want traditional. People are still scared of the new. This inability to be adaptive to change scares me. I've talked a lot about being 8 and playing the Encarta games and being a teenager and dealing with difficult situations. We had 21st century tools when I was at high school. That is teetering on ten years ago now. Ten years. We're still here. Arguing about wifi and infrastructure and cost and impact on student learning. Studies upon studies and studies and studies. Yet. Still. We're at this crossroads. Such a long long walk to where we are now. Still so much further to go. 

I really really liked the Stoll goals - displayed below. Very very cool. Reminds me of Lichtman's Pathway to Success progression. 

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Class Notes

Further reading:

Stoll (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network’s Bulletin 9. Institute of Education, University of London. Retrieved fromhttp://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Understanding-school-cultures/School-Culture